The Bahamas: Never mind the celebrities - hiding away on Harbour Island is heaven

The Bahamas has a long colonial tradition. Over the years it has attracted numerous Britons and a fair smattering of superstars. Model Elle Macpherson is a regular, as are actor Johnny Depp and naughty boy golfer Tiger Woods.

More soberly, the Duke of Windsor was its governor from 1940 to 1945, having been bundled off there as a suspected Nazi sympathiser when the war was in its infancy.

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Lyford Cay, a gated estate outside Nassau, is home to the actor Sean Connery and the billionaire financier and Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis.

This is a rich man's paradise, but we were heading for a far less rowdy setting - Harbour Island, a tiny outpost about 60 miles from Nassau.

I'm not brave about flying and make it a golden rule to have at least two stiff drinks before I get on any aeroplane. Small aircraft are a source of particular terror for me, and the one we took from Nassau to Harbour Island was very small indeed. I shut my eyes and shook for the entire 20-minute journey.

On opening them again, I saw colourful clapboard houses, fishing boats bobbing up and down in the breaking tide and lots of lush gardens. What a relief.

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Harbour Island measures 3½ miles long by 1½ miles wide and has a population of just 2,500. It's like a model village, where everyone is friendly and polite. Wild chickens peck by the roadside, cockerels sing a ferocious dawn chorus, bakeries heave with breads and pastries.

There are no noisy bars, but somebody is always on hand to make cocktails with names such as Goombay Smash.

The preferred method of transport for locals and travellers alike is the golf buggy. Life here is run at a sedate, relaxed pace. But it is not quaint. There is a cosmopolitan feel about the place. Computer king Michael Dell and his entourage had left the day we arrived.

The artist Anish Kapoor has just bought a $3 million property, and a plethora of actors, moneymen and tycoons choose to spend their holidays here. After six days, I began to understand why.

For our first three nights we stayed at the Coral Sands Resort, overseen by the charming Englishwoman Pamela Berry-Brouchier. Coral Sands is run like a European country club.

Within an hour of arriving, the worries of the world we left behind had been forgotten.

The sea can be choppy, but the azure tint and lapping waves are a huge draw, and the sheer luxury is an eye-opener: showers at the beach head and a boxful of crisp towels make life easy. After swimming, we meandered on a slow undulating walk to our room that overlooked the beach. No mini-bar and limited room service meant we were encouraged to mingle in the restaurants and bars, and engage with fellow guests.

Americans, Germans, French, and Italians, they were all there.

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The food and wine were superb. This was surprising because every last scrap is shipped in from America. But it wasn't always so.

The islands had thriving farming enterprises post-war. But then the Bahamian authorities-keen to get people off the land and into more mundane desk jobs, discouraged agricultural endeavour.

Now, amid fears that the tiny islands could be starved in the event of conflict, that policy has been reversed, and once more residents are being encouraged to work the land.

We visited a wonderful farm on the nearby island of Eleuthera. Pineapples were in abundance and a herd of well-kept goat s picked at golden hay. It is a new initiative from the Bahamian government, with grants available to turn derelict land into smallholdings.

One farmer at the forefront of this is a wonderfully bumptious woman who goes by the name of Lady Di. So successful has her pineapple-growing been that she is now exporting them to America.

After three glorious days at the Coral Sands, we walked the 100 yards or so to the Pink Sands Resort - until recently owned by Chris Blackwell, the mogul of Island Records.

It offers a series of cottages dotted throughout the grounds where coconut trees and other tropical vegetation wave in the breeze.

We stayed in a beachside villa called Cole Point South, whose most famous guest was the jazz great Nat King Cole and, more recently, Harrison Ford. This allowed Mrs Prince to tell everyone she'd slept in the same bed as Indiana Jones.

The stroll to the beach passed through the garden, where the pink sand massages the feet, the sound of the roaring sea acting as a magnet.

On our second day, we were befriended by an island aficionado.

A former textiles magnate from Italy, Marco had recently sold his house to Anish Kapoor and was in the middle of restoring a new villa in the centre of town. Marco was keen for us to attend one of the colourful churches on the island. Nearly 80 per cent of the population attends church and it's a spectacle not to be missed.

Gospel songs are bellowed out while the entire congregation begs forgiveness. Don't ask me why, but we were bellowing louder than anyone.

The staple food for islanders is a mollusc called a conch fish (pronounced 'conk'). These rubbery, squid-like offerings are either combined into a hot tomato and onion salad or sold battered and deep-fried as fritters.

The harbour front is full of takeaways serving conch and other good-looking dishes such as chicken, peas and rice. Expect to pay around $10 for a stand-up lunch.

On the way home on that little plane, I realised the only grumble I could muster after an otherwise-perfect holiday was that the alarm clock in our bedroom didn't work - that's how serious it was.